Cuauhtemoc gave her a sharp, predatory smile. "I'll see you tomorrow, same time. And we'll...talk some more."
Her stomach dropped, but she maintained a neutral expression. "Of course, My Lord." The words tasted mealy in her dry mouth. She backed out the door into the hallway and walked stiffly towards the stairs.
There was no outer wall on the upper level where the stairs went down to the ground floor, so she stopped to stare out into the sacred precinct, where the many temples stood tall and brightly-colored in the afternoon sunlight. Behind them, in the distance, the majestic purple and blue mountains stood watch, a reminder that the world stretched beyond these palace walls. But cutting her off from it—and all other land in any direction—was the dishearteningly vast, bluish-green expanse of Lake Texcoco. It's really been six years since I last stepped foot on the mainland, she realized, her melancholy intensifying.
She glanced back up the hallway, and her mood darkened. "Not this time. I won't be any man's plaything again." Even if it meant risking death to run away and gain her freedom. She couldn't allow a repeat of what happened in Tlaxcala.
Getting past the palace guards wouldn't be easy, but she'd work out some means. Until then, she would do her best to keep Cuauhtemoc at bay.
Chapter Three
Cuauhtemoc parried the sword thrust and moved aside before Ixtlil could bring his wooden blade down across his shoulder. Ixtlil ground his teeth. "Stop running, you coward!"
"If you weren't so fat and slow, I wouldn't get a chance to run." Cuauhtemoc grinned as he met the next blow with his own wooden practice sword, and they slashed back and forth, grunting and sweating in their loincloths and sandals in the heat of the exercise yard.
Ixtlil swore when Cuauhtemoc banged his knuckles, drawing blood, but he repelled the finishing blow and knocked him over, sending Cuauhtemoc's sword spinning across the dirt. "I may be fat, you skinny dog, but I can still knock you on your ass without trying." He laughed as he reached down, offering him help back up.
Accepting, Cuauhtemoc looked at Ixtlil's bloodied knuckles as he rose again. "If my sword had its obsidian blades, your fingers would be gone."
"Let's call it a draw, then."
The servant boys brought linen cloths and bowls of water and flowers, so the men could wash as they sat in the shade of the eaves. "So...." Ixtlil grinned as he crushed the flowers over his chest, releasing their sweet fragrance. "The caged birds are all atwitter about a certain slave girl visiting your quarters every day this last week."
Cuauhtemoc chuckled. "She brings me food."
"Meaning...?"
"Not what you're thinking." When Ixtlil frowned, he added, "Sorry to disappoint you."
"Is there something wrong with her? Is she deformed?"
"Hardly."
"Then what's the issue?"
Whenever he attempted to glean anything from Malinali, she skillfully maneuvered the conversation away from herself and back onto him; he ended up talking more about himself and rarely realized it until she was on her way out the door. He had to admire her skillfulness...and her graceful beauty, her skewering gaze, the smell of the flowers she perfumed herself with. She stirred him in ways he hadn't felt in a long time....
A hand waved in front of him, drawing him out of his reverie. "What?" he asked, his face flushed.
Ixtlil raised an eyebrow. "If you're not bedding her, then what are you doing with her?"
Cuauhtemoc contemplated telling Ixtlil his plans; his best friend would take his words seriously, but he'd also call him insane if he knew what Malinali had done in the vision from the gods. To make him understand, Cuauhtemoc would have to divulge things he'd seen about Ixtlil too—things he never wanted to speak aloud. Ixtlil hadn't turned into the man in his vision, so why burden him with what might have been? "Maybe I am interested in taking her for a concubine." Ixtlil wouldn't question that.
"It's about time," Ixtlil said.
"I'm not as...forward with women as you are."
Ixtlil grinned wide. "Each of us has our special gift."
"I prefer to know a woman well before bringing her to my bed."
"Show up dressed just so and she'll beg you to press those muscles against her," Ixtlil joked, nodding at his bare chest.
Cuauhtemoc laughed. "Maybe I should try that." Regardless, he was getting nowhere with Malinali, and he needed to take a different tack.
¤
When Malinali came from the bedrooms into the slave quarters' common room, following the tantalizing smell of fresh tortillas, she found numerous young slave women crowded together like a flock of turkeys while someone talked in a high-pitched voice. "She's been seen going into the huey tlatoani's quarters every day this week, and she doesn't come out for a very long time."
The girls tittered but stopped when one noticed Malinali. Only then did she see the young woman, Tayanna, holding court in the middle. Tayanna hid her smile behind her hand. "We were just talking about you, Malinali."
She glared at her. "I want you to stop."
"Why so embarrassed? If I bedded Cuauhtemoc, I'd sing about it from the upper floor windows. It's an unparalleled honor to be an emperor's concubine."
Bristling, Malinali said, "I'm not bedding the huey tlatoani."
"Then what do you do in his quarters every day?" one of the other girls asked.
"I take him his afternoon meal and return the dishes when he's finished."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
As she turned to leave, Tayanna crowed, "Of course, he wouldn't want someone so old. He needs more children, after all."
Pausing at the doorway, Malinali's shoulders tensed. She wasn't that old; the emperor was five years older than her, and no one would dare call him old. True, most men of Cuauhtemoc's social status preferred their women as young as possible, but despite having left her childhood behind a good ten years ago, she had no reason to believe the gods wouldn't bless her with the son or daughter she still dreamed of someday having. But she had no interest in seeking that with Cuauhtemoc, or any other nobleman; she'd learned her lesson about entrusting her dreams to such men. "May you be fortunate enough never to fall into the hands of someone who will make you see the foolishness of your ambitions, you little idiot," she said then left, Tayanna gaping after her.
¤
"The huey tlatoani wishes you to meet him at the royal stables in Chapultepec," the head cook informed Malinali when she arrived in the kitchens. He handed her a sack and a small square of fig bark paper.
Malinali stared down at the mysterious pictograms written in brown ink. "Where should I meet my escort?"
"No escort; show your orders to the guard post on the causeway and they'll point you in the right direction." He gave her a smirk. "You must've done something to earn the emperor's trust."
She caught herself before she glared at him. Let him think that; both he and Cuauhtemoc were fools. After a week of careful observation of the night guards' routines, she knew she would never find a more perfect moment to seize her freedom.
Or maybe Cuauhtemoc thinks you too cowardly to run, she considered as she jogged down the courtyard steps. By law, any slave who ran to the palace before their master caught them was freed. Of course, since her master lived in the palace, she had to reach the one all the way in Texcoco, on the mainland, and hope one of the city's guard patrols didn't snatch her up first; runaway slaves faced a death sentence if caught. It was risky, but she might never again get this chance.
While Malinali had often accompanied Tecuichpo to the temples to make offerings, she hadn't been beyond the sacred precinct in the middle of the city since she arrived in Tenochtitlan six years ago. She'd heard that none of the six causeways went anywhere near Texcoco—she'd been brought across the lake on a cargo boat that had unloaded at the eastern docks—so when she got to the western lakeshore, she'd have to take a boat across to the other side, or risk trekking all the way around the lake, hopefully avoiding bandits and soldiers. Either way it was
a race to beat Cuauhtemoc's guards to King Ixtlilxochitl's palace. She sweated and fidgeted as she approached the guard post outside the palace.
The guards looked at the paper then pointed the way to the Chapultepec causeway before returning to their conversation. She headed towards the causeway, but once she joined the crowd, she glanced over her shoulder, to make certain the guards were still distracted, then she slipped down a side alley and started north.
She kept her head down as she wound through the thin crowds, nodding to other slaves as they passed. When she spotted soldiers, she hurried down other side alleys to avoid them. She flinched when someone shouted "stop!" but when she glanced back, a guard was chastising a young man and his friends who all stood in a group, heads hung with guilt. Her heart thudding drunkenly, she exhaled and hurried on.
Eventually she found the northern causeway. Hundreds of floating gardens branched off the broad stone walkway on both sides, and farmers poled their small wooden boats along the canals in between, negotiating past the large barges where workers collected the city's waste for fertilizer. Ducks crowded the waters, taking noisy flight as the boats moved through their paths. Slaves moved in both directions along the causeway, the baskets of product on their backs held in place by cloth straps across their foreheads. Soldiers, dressed in feathered shirts or jaguar skin capes, marched in small groups, but ordinary citizens outnumbered the rest, each dressed according to their social standing; the lower class men in plain white loincloths, the nobles in elaborate, colorful capes. Oh to be so free! Malinali barely kept from running.
That joy faded though when she noticed the jaguar warriors manning the guard post checking every wooden collar before letting any slave walk out onto the causeway. Ayya! I definitely can't cross here. She'd have to find her way to one of the other causeways.
But the crowd behind her jostled her up to the guard post. She swallowed hard and wadded the paper in her hand when the two impatient guards motioned her forward. If you're to face death, at least do it with dignity. She raised her shoulders then stepped forward.
One guard squinted at the symbol stamped into the wood around her neck then said, "Let's see your orders." Malinali handed them over and stood placid—and a bit numb—as he glanced over the pictograms on the paper. A chill replaced the numbness when he looked sharply up at her again. "Are you lost?"
"I'm supposed to go to Chapultepec." She feared her voice would break, but it held. "I'm supposed to meet the huey tlatoani at the royal stables."
"This isn't the causeway to Chapultepec." The other guard held his hand up to silence the protests from the others waiting behind Malinali.
Her mouth went dry as the two men gave her hard stares. "It isn't?"
"It isn't," the first guard repeated coldly. "Certainly the guards outside the palace told you where to go." The other guard tapped his fingers on the polished wood handle of his obsidian-bladed sword.
"They...weren't there," she stammered, the lie flying frantically from her tongue. "So I asked a passing jaguar knight and he pointed me this direction." She wrung her hands together, not only to look the part of the regretful slave, but to keep from shaking. "Please, this is my first time outside the palace and I don't know the city, and it never occurred to me to not trust a jaguar knight."
After a chilling stare that lasted forever, the first guard tucked the paper back into her hands. To his partner, he muttered, "Escort her personally to Chapultepec. Ensure she doesn't take any more questionable directions."
The other guard took her by the arm and led her down a side street to the nearest canal. He pushed her towards a canoe moored against the bank. She sat without comment but avoided his gaze when he settled opposite her and took up the oar. He paddled them down the canal, back towards the palace and the sacred precinct. He said nothing as he maneuvered the nimble little boat into one of the intersecting canals and headed west. Soon they left the city proper behind and skimmed between the floating gardens and the causeway to Chapultepec. As Malinali watched the city recede, her slave collar felt heavier than ever on her shoulders.
From the docks, the guard escorted her to a fortress-like building surrounded by tall stone walls. The guard handed her orders to those watching the gate then told Malinali, "Now that you know the way to Chapultepec, I trust you won't get turned around and show up at the wrong guard gate again." He gave her a pointed look.
She plastered on a smile despite the seething heat in her stomach. "No, and thank you." Once he left her to her new guards, she let out a hissing breath, choking back the threat of tears. Tezcatlipoca save me, I almost got caught! Numb, she followed the guards through the gate.
The stone building sat in the middle of a large dirt yard. Two large sliding wooden doors stood open at the ends, and strange doe-like creatures stood in stalls inside, making peculiar noises and snorting as they swished their long, hairy tails. She'd seen such creatures when the Spanish came to Potonchan—they'd ridden upon their backs—but none since then. Some servants gathered their dung in baskets to deliver to the barges while others laid dry grass on the floor for them.
The guard took Malinali to the far side of the yard where Cuauhtemoc stood next to one of these strange animals, brushing the long hair on its neck. He wore his gold royal diadem inset with turquoise—a stone reserved for royalty—and his black hair tied back in a knot, the neatly-trimmed ends reaching just between his shoulder blades, drawing her attention to his lightweight white xicolli shirt that showed off his formidable arm muscles. That demon of a man, she thought, her breath catching, all disappointment at being here rather than on her way to Texcoco—and her freedom—suddenly forgotten. Usually he wore bulky, concealing feathered robes, but now he was bulky in a completely different—and by no means unpleasant—way. Against her will, she wondered how he looked under that xicolli. He also wore buckskin pants, a piece of clothing usually reserved for war. Cuauhtemoc smiled and she wanted to look away, so he wouldn't realize how much he affected her, but she made herself stay still. I must appear completely in control.
"I trust the walk over was pleasant?" he asked.
"It was." She finally tore her gaze away, to gawk at the deer-like creature instead. "Where do you wish me to set up your meal?"
"I'm not ready to eat yet." He took the sack from her and slung it over his shoulder, the strap pressing the xicolli against his chest. And my, is he broad and well-defined even through that linen. As he returned to brushing the creature, Malinali eyed the beast warily.
"Is this your first time seeing a horse?" he asked.
She shook her head, but when the horse moved to nose her shoulder, she leaped away, a tiny shriek escaping her before she could stop it.
Cuauhtemoc laughed. "He won't hurt you." He patted the horse's nose and it nudged against his ribs. "Once he might have taken a bite out of you, but I've taught him to be gentle."
"Where did you find it?"
"Most of our horses were born in Chapultepec, sired from those we liberated from the Spanish settlements on the islands. But I took this one from the Spanish Devil himself."
"This was Cortés's horse?"
He nodded. "I call him Tlazocozcatl."
Malinali snickered. "You named him Precious Jewel?"
"I did." Cuauhtemoc chuckled. "I've tamed his battle-hungry heart, so he's friendly now. Come touch him." When she shot him a wary glare, he added, "I promise he won't bite you."
Now he thinks me a coward. Swallowing her fear, she moved towards the horse, holding out her tense hand. Her heart skipped when Tlazocozcatl snorted, but when he reached his warm, soft nose out to meet her fingers, she smiled in spite of herself. He nuzzled her palm with his flexible lips, staring back at her with bright, onyx-black eyes. She ran her hand up his long face to where the fur curled into a curious star on his forehead.
"He likes you."
Now when she met Cuauhtemoc's gaze, something was different; the hard, probing stare he usually employed had been replaced with a softness she ha
dn't seen in his eyes before. He didn't look the part of a thief searching for the easiest way past her defenses; he looked at her as if she were someone dear, someone he didn't want to damage simply for curiosity's sake. She rather liked that.
What are you doing? The man's not worth the dirt under your feet. She broke free of his mesmerizing gaze, embarrassed and angry at herself. She dropped her own gaze, as a slave should; the better to hide her discomfort. "Forgive my disrespectful stare, My Lord."
"You needn't apologize. I don't trust anyone who won't hold my gaze when they speak to me." Cuauhtemoc watched her from the corner of his eye as he finished the brushing. "The reason I called you out here...I've been rudely prying at you and you've been extremely patient with me. I wish to make it up to you."
"What do you have in mind?"
"It's a surprise."
Surprises rarely ended well for her.
He signaled to one of the stable boys, and the young man hurried over with a blanket and a contraption of leather straps and metal rings. Malinali had seen the Spaniards' metal swords, and there were some hanging on the walls of the great hall—trophies from battles—but metal was still a rare and curious sight. She pressed closer for a better look.
The horse nosed his head into the mess of straps Cuauhtemoc held up while the boy spread the blanket across his back. Another boy lugged over a reed-woven seat which he strapped on over the blanket. Cuauhtemoc then climbed upon Tlazocozcatl's back. "Up here with me, if you would." He held a hand out to Malinali.
"What?" She tried to back away but the stable boy pushed her forward. Cuauhtemoc took her hand, his grip firm and warm, and the boy knelt and hoisted her up by one foot. She shrieked, her free arm flailing.
"Throw your other leg over his back," Cuauhtemoc lectured as she clambered about, uncertain whether it was safer to get atop the horse or try to jump away. Before she could do either, Cuauhtemoc grabbed her ankle and pulled it over the horse's back, so she landed in front of him with a grunt. When the horse shifted under them, she cried out.
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